


Hats For All The World

by SaintClaire



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (Movies - Burton)
Genre: Gen, Hats, Opium, Tea, mercury madness, oversize shoes, tea time, the mad hatter is loveably insane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10451130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintClaire/pseuds/SaintClaire
Summary: It's tea time in Wonderland, and where the hell is the March Hare?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxtwin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtwin/gifts).



> This was originally an English essay, written as practice for my year 12 exam. It's kind of a mash from all the different publications of Alice in Wonderland (the novel, the movie, the Disney movie, etc.). I wrote it thinking of how the Mad Hatter suffered from incurable mercury poisoning, as so many other hat makers did, and how opium was the only 'cure' for the shakes that the madness brought on. Recently read the best tea table story in a long while - was inspired to post this by the strength of the writing.

 

“Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast” – Alice, to the Mad Hatter.

 

 

The little man cackled to himself, dancing around the table before kicking a teapot with his shoe, catching it, and promptly pouring the tea inside into his ear.

 

“A very most merry un-birthday to you, and you, and Me!” he cried, spinning around and bowing to his imaginary audience that was not actually present. Not deterred in the least by the lack of applause, he continued to dance an encore, sang three more rounds of the song, and then threw scones to the crowds that only frightened away the birds before they returned to perch cautiously on top of the bread.

 

Wild white hair exploded from under the band of his hat, his once-elegant dustcoat proudly bore the stains of many split, thrown, erupted, kicked and drunken cups of tea, brown shoes stuck out like rowboats and his hands quivered, ever so slightly, like someone who has just touched an electrical socket. The hat was the master of the man, perched snugly on top of the head like a songbird and still smoking slightly from something that had blown out the top not a half hour ago.

 

“March Hare, March Hare, where is the March Hare?”, he suddenly worried, spinning around to look and falling over his shoes. “It’s time for tea!” He threw teapots off the table, looked under plates, and with some trepidation, searched his own left shoe. Not finding the March Hare, he threw it at the stopwatch with gusto. The Cheshire Cat appeared, as did the White Rabbit, but the March Hare was not to be found and he turned the others away from the table in disgust.

 

When the March Hare was finally to appear, he was covered in cheese and mushroom, and had blue smoke curling out of his ears, still softly changing colours. The Mad Hatter sat on the kettle and glared, holding the Hare in his brilliant orange gaze. “You are late, March Hare. You are late for tea.”

 

The Hare screeched and scampered, scuttled and scurried, offered his apologies and then, after some hard thought where smoke poured out of his ears yet faster, handed over a pipe from the caterpillar. The Hatter smoked the pipe and gently quietened, his eyes dulling, the vibrations of his shaking easing until only the tips of the flowers on the table were quivering.

 

He beamed at the March Hare, and doffed his felt tipped hat so low that the ribbons fell into the candelabra on the table. “Very good! Such a good pipe! I believe I feel quite calm.” He noticed with a shriek and a squawk that his hat was burning, sparks springing up to bat at his eyebrows. The March Hare saved the day, in a unusually heroic act for him, promptly pouring a teapot over the dying hat. The two men picked up the hat, looking at the slightly blackened mess.

 

The Mad Hatter leapt of the table and landed in his own shoe on one foot like a very short, squat ballerina. “I will need a new hat for tea,” he declared in a pompous accent. “I simply cannot have tea without a hat, or my head will go hot and I shall catch cold.”

 

He pulled a hammer out of a saucepan, and yanked the fur jacket of the March Hare’s shoulders. “I need a hat, and a hat I shall have.” He tinkered away for many hours, throwing ribbons and screws and pins and needles over his shoulder, muttering and mumbling while the March Hare sat nicely and drank tea. Bangs, puffs of smoke and funny smells drifted through the air, but all were so common when one was around the Mad Hatter that the March Hare scarcely looked up, and merely continued to cram cake into his mouth.

 

When the product was finished, the Mad Hatter held the hat in front of his face and looked at it with a queer expression on his face. “I remember making hats once,” he said softly. “I made them for the Queen. I told her I wanted to make hats for the whole world, and she sent me to Wonderland.” His face quivered, fluoro eyes burning, a look of intense confusion on his face. “I was going to make hats for the world. I took all my gatherings and went. Where is the world, and why are they not wearing my hats?” His little body was shaking now, and sensing danger, the March Hare leapt off the table and cautiously crept into his line of view.

 

“The March Hare!” cried the Hatter. “I can make a hat for you!” Instantly his head snapped up, his belt snapped off, and he threw his own newly made hat over his head. He worked with such gusto that one could not see his hands for the blur they created. When finally finished, the March Hare and he decked out in hats that would make a Queen proud to wear, they at last sat down to tea. It was very late at this time, so late that one could easily conclude it as most definitely not tea time, but the Mad Hatter and the March Hare did not care in the slightest. They drank tea and buttered bread and iced cakes and then danced on the table, squashing the lot as they laughed.

 

Walking away, an odd smell was in the air, wafting from the hat of the man with clear, vivid orange eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> comments much appreciated :)


End file.
